a play in the theater as ten Roman ships came into the harbor. Under a sudden impulse of wrath, a mob attacked them, and destroyed five of them. Even then the Romans were in no haste to engage in hostilities. The Tarentines themselves were divided as to the policy best to be pursued. But the war-party had the more voices. An embassy was dispatched to solicit the help of _Pyrrhus_. At Tarentum an embassy from Rome was treated with contempt. _Pyrrhus_ came over with a large army. He obliged the Tarentines themselves to arm, and to join his forces. EVENTS OF THE WAR.--The Romans were fully alive to the peril, and prepared to meet it. Even the proletarians, who were not liable to military service, were enrolled. The first great battle took place at _Heraclea_, near the little river Siris (280 B.C.). Then the Roman cohort and the Macedonian phalanx met for the first time. It was a collision of trained mercenary troops with the citizen soldiery of Rome. It was a struggle between the Greek and the Roman for the ascendency. The confusion caused by the elephants of _Pyrrhus_, an encounter with which was something new and strange to the Romans, turned the tide in his favor. "A few more such victories," said Pyrrhus, "and I am ruined." He desired peace, and sent _Cineas_ as a messenger to the Senate. But _Appius Claudius_, who had been consul and censor, and was now old and blind, begged them not to make peace as long as there was an enemy in Italy. _Cineas_ reported that he found the Senate "an assembly of kings." In the next year, the two armies, each with its allies numbering seventy thousand men, met at _Asculum_ (279). After a bloody conflict, _Pyrrhus_ remained in possession of the field, but with an enormous loss of men. The _Syracusans_ in Sicily, who had been hard pressed by the _Carthaginians_, now called upon him to aid them. He was not reluctant to leave Italy. The Romans captured all the cities on the south coast, except _Tarentum_ and _Rhegium_. After two years' absence, _Pyrrhus_ returned to Italy. His fleet, on the passage from Sicily, was defeated by the Carthaginians. At _Beneventum_, he was completely vanquished by the Romans, who captured thirteen hundred prisoners and four elephants. Pyrrhus returned to Epirus; and, after his death (272), _Milon_, who commanded the garrison left by him in _Tarentum_, surrendered the city and fortress. The Tarentines agreed to deliver up their ships and arms, and to demolish their walls. One after another of the resisting tribes yielded to the Romans, ceding portions of their territory, and receiving Roman colonies. In 266, the Roman sway was established over the whole peninsula proper, from the _Rubicon_ and the _Macra_ to the southern extremity of _Calabria_.